FIFTEEN PATIENTS who underwent cataract surgery recently at a hospital here have lost vision in the operated eye and have been admitted to PGIMER, Chandigarh, officials said on Tuesday.

Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij, who visited PGIMER to meet the victims, said a three-member committee has been constituted to probe the incident. He said strict action would be taken against the guilty. In the evening, police registered a case against Dr Charanjeet Singh, who conducted the surgeries at the Sarvakalyan Eye and Charitable Hospital, and Sarvakalyan Society.

Dr Charanjeet Singh called it a “surgical accident”. “During the surgery, you have to maintain sterility and many people are part of that. You cannot blame the doctor alone for this incident,” he told The Indian Express. “This is a fault and I accept it. There must be something wrong in the sterilisation.”

Teams from the health department and police Tuesday reached the hospital and examined the equipment and facilities. The hospital was later sealed.

“We cannot call it an operation theatre. It’s just a room and they named it operation theater by putting a table and stool inside it,” said B B Lala, a senior health department official, who was in the team that visited the hospital. “Proper equipment required for eye surgery were not there.”